CRANKBAITS My most common guide trip is with three customers. I don't care to throw cranks with three and myself in the boat. Lot of other reasons mentioned by others in previous posts.
I have a tackle box full of cranks including all those mentioned by south fork guy. I named some I like in a post I did on this site on 6-2 . The walleye in the picture(6-2 report) has a Salmo hornet4F in his mouth. I was out scouting that afternoon by myself, the last spot I tried was a small flat 5-7' in two 40yd passes I caught 4 nice walleyes the biggest one in the picture 19.5" (released).
I recently had a trip with a solo fisherman, we did well on live bait, late in the day he wanted to try something else. It was a dark day with a nice chop. We went to a shallow wood flat 4-5' and threw cranks. I put a rapala J-9 in perch on his pole I tried various other baits. Early in the drift he caught a nice walleye, I pushed the mark button, then he caught another. I asked if he wanted to go back he said no lets keep drifting. I dug around in my box and couldn't find my other perch j9, in one long drift he caught four I caught two, mostly nicer fish.
Early this season I had the privilege of meeting arguably the best walleye fisherman in the country out on the TFF. He shared a long conversation with my son Jack and I. As you can imagine I had a lot of questions, when crank baits came up he told me when there is a crank bait bite in a tournament Berkley flicker shads and Salmos usually dominate. He designed the flicker shad prototype for Berkley on the TFF. The flicker shads are similar to a shad rap but considerably more cost effective.
Cranks are a good search method for finding fish you can cover a lot of ground drifting. I cast straight ahead in the direction the boat is moving depending on how fast your moving you wind a little faster to compensate for the boat speed. When you hit a snag you take up the slack line until you get over the top and slightly past and pull in the opposite direction you were retrieving, it usually comes off.
I have a desnagger when you are by yourself and it's rough out they are not always easy to use.
Let's not forget the rapala #9 count down, I think Porky reads LL, That's all he throws(he doesn't make it a secrete, he may own stock in the company) and does well, but he knows the idiosyncrasies of the bait and how to use it. I recently asked him how he gets it down in some of the 8-10 he fishes" how do you think, count it down".
Cranks are a lot of fun, if you might shed a tear over losing one, you might want to save them for a different body of water.